Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Fleetwood Mac · S2 E2
Jeremy Spencer Vanishes
Mid-tour in Los Angeles, the guitarist walks out for lunch and joins a religious cult. He never comes back
Los Angeles, February 1971. Jeremy Spencer tells the band he is going out to buy a magazine, walks out of the hotel on Hollywood Boulevard, and never comes back.
Fleetwood Mac, "Station Man" (Kiln House, 1970). The last album with Jeremy Spencer as a full member. Listen to Spencer and Kirwan trading guitar lines over Fleetwood and McVie's rolling groove. This is the sound the band loses when Spencer walks down Hollywood Boulevard and does not look back.
Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles
The street Jeremy Spencer walked down on a February afternoon in 1971, saying he would be back in ten minutes. The band would not find him for three days.
The Search
When Spencer does not return for soundcheck, the band assumes the worst. Mick Fleetwood calls hospitals, police stations, and morgues across Los Angeles. It takes three days before someone tells them to check the Children of God, a religious commune on the outskirts of the city.
TAP TO REVEAL: Who flew to LA to save the tour after Spencer vanished?
What excuse did Jeremy Spencer give before disappearing in Los Angeles?
Jewel Eyed Judy (Fleetwood Mac)
From Kiln House (1970). A Kirwan and Spencer collaboration that bounces between their two styles: Kirwan's bright, melodic pop instinct and Spencer's 1950s rock-and-roll swagger. Hearing it now, knowing one of these guitarists is about to disappear forever, gives the track a bittersweet edge it was never meant to carry.
Jewel Eyed Judy, Fleetwood Mac (1970)
Read the lyrics while you listen. Kirwan and Spencer trading lines and styles, two guitarists orbiting each other for the last time.
Two guitarists gone in nine months, and the band is down to its bones. Next: a 25-year-old American named Bob Welch answers the call, and Fleetwood Mac starts sounding like California for the first time.
0 XP earned this session